Fwd: Use of scripture since the 1950s

PROVO =E2=80=94 Eight years after he headed the committee responsiblefor publication of the LDS edition of the King James Bible, PresidentThomas S. Monson paused to write in his journal about what it hadmeant to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "I have said in private this is one of the major contributionsduring my service as a general authority," he wrote on Dec. 4, 1987. President Monson, who currently serves as first counselor in theFirst Presidency, has been an apostle for nearly 42 years but hisopinion hasn't changed, he said this week at a reunion of committeemembers who produced the LDS edition of the Bible in 1979 and followedit up in 1981 with the church's "triple combination" of uniquescripture =E2=80=94 the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl ofGreat Price. Scholars inside the church and out credit those editions of thescriptures with helping to change the way church members worshipped onSundays. The publications also altered the perception of the church inthe Christian world. "They created for the Latter-day Saints as well as those outsidethe church an emphasis on the fact the Book of Mormon did not replacethe Bible," said Jan Shipps, professor emeritus of history andreligious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University. The new editions included ground-breaking tools like the LDSBible Dictionary, an index and new chapter headings and footnotesspecific to LDS doctrine. It all took some getting used to, saidKathleen Flake, assistant professor of American religious history atVanderbilt University. The church's culture into the 1960s did not include memberstoting scriptures to Sunday meetings, as many do now. In fact, manyLDS talks centered on poetry and stories instead of scripture, Flakesaid, until church President Joseph Fielding Smith began to encouragea change.

Other influences shaped the scripture-centered culture of thechurch familiar to members today. Scriptures committee member DanielLudlow said Brigham Young University began to require scripturecourses, not just religion courses, in the 1950s, and the church beganto emphasize scriptures as the manual for Sunday School in the late1960s. The 1978 revelation to extend the church's priesthood to allworthy male members needed to be included in the scriptures, Flakesaid, and members recommitted themselves to scripture study again inthe 1980s after church President Ezra Taft Benson counseled members toimprove their study of the Book of Mormon. When the new editions of the scriptures appeared, numerousarticles in church magazines explained how to use them and the toolsincluded with them. Still, Flake said, "There was a period where members broughttheir scriptures to church but didn't know how to use them. It tookMormons at least 20 years to begin to really talk about scriptures." The new edition of the Bible solved a major problem for churchmembers, said James Mortimer, a member of the scriptures committee andformer publisher of the Deseret Morning News. Until 1979,members juggled three Bibles published by different churches. LDS children used the World Bible, LDS seminary students used aChurch of England Bible and LDS missionaries used a third Bibleprinted by Cambridge University, Mortimer said. The footnotes in the Bibles and the Church of England's BibleDictionary were fine =E2=80=94 for the Church of England, BYU religionprofessor Robert J. Matthews said. Much of the doctrine wasproblematic for Latter-day Saints. Matthews said the Church of England generously allowed thescripture committee to remake its Bible Dictionary, adding andsubtracting to create a separate version consistent with LDS doctrineand now included with every LDS edition of the King James Version.

Keith Johnson, Deseret Morning News The project also gave Matthews and Elder Bruce R. McConkie ofthe church's Quorum of the Twelve the opportunity to champion theJoseph Smith Translation of the Bible, which McConkie's son Joseph, aBYU religion professor, said had been "something of a hiss and byword"in the church. Smith's translation =E2=80=94 what he said were inspired corrections t=oerrors made over centuries of translation and transcription =E2=80=94 is th=eproperty of what was then known as the Reorganized Church of JesusChrist of Latter Day Saints, and LDS church members were suspicious ofwhat it contained. Now more than 1,000 passages from the JST, or about one-third ofthe alterations Smith made, are found in the LDS edition of the Bible,either in footnotes or in a small section after the Topical Guide andBible Dictionary, and a generation of Latter-day Saints has grown upwith it as part of the mainstream church canon. Flake, who is LDS, said the church's continued reliance on theKing James Version appears to have benefited it in two ways. "As a scholar I'm interested in the way the church continues tomaintain its commitment to the King James Version while integratingthe Joseph Smith Translation," she said. "The LDS edition of the KingJames Bible is both useful for the church's proselytizing programwhile integrating a part of its scriptural history that had heretoforebeen lost." Another tool that helped change the church and its perception isthe Topical Guide, nearly 600 pages citing about 50,000 verses. Eachtopic first lists scriptural references from the Old Testament andthen the New, followed by those from the Book of Mormon, Doctrine andCovenants and Pearl of Great Price. "These lists call to mind a great unity of scripture," Matthewssaid. "The four standard works all treat the subjects the same way." One result of work on the Topical Guide surprised the scripturescommittee, committee member George Horton Jr. said. "Something popped out we weren't prepared for =E2=80=94 the incrediblenumber of references to the Savior." The guide included 19 pages of scriptural references to JesusChrist, across 58 topics. "These references from the four volumes of scripture constitutethe most comprehensive compilation of scriptural information on themission and teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ that has ever beenassembled in the history of the world," Elder Boyd K. Packercommented. A member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Packer was oneof the project's directors, along with President Monson and ElderMcConkie. Shipps said the editions quieted some of the criticism fromEvangelicals that Latter-day Saints were not Christian. "This effort was to signal to the world and the Latter-daySaints the importance of both scriptures," she said. "The fact was thechurch itself started emphasizing the scriptures, both the Book ofMormon and the Bible, at that time." The project began in 1971 but really gained steam in the late'70s, when deadlines were short and hours for the team, which includedhundreds of unpaid students, scholars and interested church members,were long. There was humor to be found, however. When Mortimer asked for a report from the Topical Guidecommittee, which was working alphabetically, he received this writtenreply: "We have been through Heaven and Hell, Love and Lust and nowwe're working on Repentance." When the work finally was done, President Monson said theproject had changed the lives of church members. "You've affected the church and you've affected the youth," hetold the reunion of committee members on Thursday night during afund-raiser for the Crandall Printing Museum in Provo. "Everymissionary who goes out is better because of the work you did withvery little credit. "The work was prodigious. I think it's one of the finestprojects I've ever seen."